Civil War Humor 1861-1865

Civil War Political Cartoon

Parody was a favorite form of humor among the troops of both sides. The soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia, often referred to as “Lee’s Army”, sometimes parodied the title of Victor Hugo’s popular novel Les Miserables and referred to themselves as, “Lee’s Miserables .”

Popular songs were a source for parody. The song Just Before The Battle, Mother (I was thinking most of you), was mangled into:

Just before the battle, Mother,
I was drinking mountain dew,
When I saw the Rebels coming
To the rear I quickly flew.

Not even prayers were spared. The classic children's 18th century prayer:

“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I shall die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

was revised by Union soldiers on Burnside’s celebrated “Mud March”:

“Now I lay me down to sleep
In the mud that’s many fathoms deep;
If I’m not here when you awake,
Just hunt me up with an oyster rake.”

Civil War Humor 1861-1865

Despite the horrors of war, or maybe because of them, humor still had a place in American life. Abraham Lincoln best summed up the role of humor in the war when he said, “With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”

A brief but fascinating look at humor in the Civil War including: (1) Stories Around the Campfire, (2) Parody, (3) the Irish, (4) Humorous Incidents, (5) Civil War Humorists, and (6) Lincoln.

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George Armstrong Custer: Influence of the Battle of the Washita

CUSTER

     It was during the campaign of 1868 that George Armstrong Custer distinguished himself as an Indian fighter at the Battle of the Washita (Oklahoma).  The formal order directing operations to commence came in the shape of a brief letter of instructions from Department headquarters.  “…as nothing was known positively as to the exact whereabouts of the Indian villages, the instructions (had) to be general in terms.  In substance, I was to march my command in search of the winter hiding places of the hostile Indians and wherever found to administer such punishment for past depredations as my force was able.”

     Major Joel Elliott located the Indian trail.  Custer writes, “We…at once set out to join in the pursuit, a pursuit which could and would only end when we overtook our enemies.  And in order that we should not be trammeled in our movements it was my intention then and there to abandon our train of wagons, taking with us only such supplies as we could carry on our persons and strapped to our saddles….”  The battle of the Washita commenced with the regimental band playing Gary Owen as, “the bugle sounded the charge and the entire command dashed rapidly into the village.  The Indians were caught napping….”

     The actual possession of the village and its lodges was achieved within a few moments, but now on all sides Indians began gathering around Custer’s command.   Custer writes, “Making dispositions to overcome any resistance which might be offered to our advance by throwing out a strong force of skirmishers, we set out down the valley in the direction where the other villages had been reported and toward the hills on which were collected the greatest number of Indians.”  By prominently displaying captive women and children hostages, Custer was able to force the Indians to disengage.  “Whether the fact that they could not fire upon our advance without endangering the lives of their own people, who were prisoners in our hands, or some other reason prevailed with them, they never offered to fire a shot or retard our movements in any manner, but instead assembled their outlying detachments as rapidly as possible, and began a precipitate movement down the valley”

      Understanding Custer’s state of mind and tactics at the Washita is essential to understanding his later actions on the Little Bighorn: (1) the central problem in this type of irregular warfare was catching the enemy, Indians would scatter rather than fight, and (2) Indians would not endanger their women and children (Custer wrote, “Indians contemplating a battle, either offensive or defensive, are always anxious to have their women and children removed from all danger thereof.”)  Clearly, based on his earlier experiences Custer expected the Indians at the Little Bighorn to run.  In any event, he meant to bring them to heel by taking women and children hostages.  His swing to the north of the village was designed to accomplish this one thing.

Battle of the Washita from "Little Big Man"

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Views of Custer have changed over succeeding generations. Custer has been portrayed as a callous egotist, a bungling egomaniac, a genocidal war criminal, and the puppet of faceless forces. For almost one hundred and fifty years, Custer has been a Rorschach test of American social and personal values. Whatever else George Armstrong Custer may or may not have been, even in the twenty-first century, he remains the great lightning rod of American history. This book presents portraits of Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn as they have appeared in print over successive decades and in the process demonstrates the evolution of American values and priorities.

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A Southern Town Goes to War: Holly Springs 1861

Two Confederate volunteers in the

an early uniform of the Civil War

THE SOUTHERN HERALD April 5, 1861:

“Thursday the 28th of March, 1861, was a day long to be remembered in Holly Springs. It was the day appointed for the volunteers from Marshall County, who had nobly responded to the call made upon Mississippi by President Davis for 1,500 troops to go to Pensacola, to set out for the scene of action. The three companies who had been accepted for that service were the Jeff Davis Rifles, Capt. Sam Benton; the Home Guards, Capt. Thos. W. Harris; and the Quitman Rifle Guards, Capt. Robert McGowan Jr…... Three more brave and gallant companies, or companies made up of better material, social, moral, and intellectual, were never mustered into service, in any age, or in any country. The farmer and the mechanic, the teacher and the pupil, the laborer and the artist, the merchant and the lawyer. . .were represented by some of their very best.... The slaveholder and the non-slave owner stood side by side in those gallant ranks, and they go to teach the fanatic and deluded Yankee that they have common cause in the maintenance of our glorious cause....”

Prior to departure , “the presentation of a beautiful flag to the Jeff Davis Rifles, by the young ladies of the Holly Springs Female Institute, of which Prof. Hackelton is the principal. The flag was presented by Miss Jennie Edmonson, who represented the young ladies. She was most tastefully dressed, having on a jacket of gray, trimmed in black, with cap of similar material, to correspond with the uniform of the Rifles. Her address was replete with beauty both in the matter and manner of it. Her graceful figure; her handsome features; her clear, distinct and musical enunciation; and yet more the earnest feelings with which she spoke, all tended greatly to heighten the effect of the burning words and elegant diction of the address itself. The heart would have been hard and the eye cold indeed that could have withheld the homage of a tear to the triumph of woman’s eloquence, when she pledged to the parting soldiers the prayers of her own sex and the blessings of the people, and invoked in their behalf in anxious and trembling tones, the benediction of Almighty God.”

“That flag was received by Capt. Benton, as the gallant representative of his gallant company. Mr. Benton’s reputation as a public speaker is too well established to need any encomium from us. His remarks were brief, appropriate and to the point--promptings of a patriotism as profound as the speaker is known to be generous and brave. But the heart of the soldier was too full for any display of words. In plain feeling language he thanked the young ladies for this token of their regard and confidence, and of their devotion to the cause of independence; and gave them a soldier’s word that that Flag, though perchance stained with blood, should never be stained with dishonor.”

Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Civil War

A brief look at love, sex, and marriage in the Civil War. The book covers courtship, marriage, birth control and pregnancy, divorce, slavery and the impact of the war on social customs.

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The White House of the Confederacy

Called “The White House”, the Executive Mansion was rented from the City of Richmond by the Confederate government to serve as the residence of President Jefferson Davis and his family.  The White House of the Confederacy  is located at Clay and 12^th Streets.

Security was lax by modern standards.  The President’s two personal secretaries were armed.  Additionally, a soldier was stationed at the front door, and another at the basement door.  Twelve soldiers were stationed on the grounds.

Jefferson Davis, his wife Varina, and their three small children moved into the White House in August, 1861.  Two more children were born in the White House, in 1861 and 1864 respectively.  Five year old Joseph, died from a fall at the house in 1864.

After the fall of Richmond, President Lincoln and his son Tad went to view the ruined city.  Lincoln went to the Confederate White House (depicted in the next picture), went to the second floor and triumphantly sat at Jefferson Davis’s desk.  Thousands assembled outside to catch a glimpse of Lincoln.

The 1865 Fall of Richmond in Pictures

The last death agonies of the Confederacy captured in pictures.

Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Civil War

A brief look at love, sex, and marriage in the Civil War. The book covers courtship, marriage, birth control and pregnancy, divorce, slavery and the impact of the war on social customs.

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George Armstrong Custer: Life on the Plains

George Armstrong Custer

     In 1874, Custer published My Life on the Plains, an account of his career as an Indian fighter to that time.  This book gives us important insights into the kind of man Custer was and the type of tactics he habitually used.

     Like many professional Victorian era soldiers, Custer saw war as a great adventure, he reveled in the freedom of the frontier, “I had several English greyhounds, whose speed I was anxious to test with that of the antelope….Taking with me but one man…and calling my dogs around me, I galloped ahead of the column as soon as it was daylight, for the purpose of having a chase after some antelope.” While war might be the greatest game of all, Custer respected the Indian as an opponent, “I had an opportunity to witness the Indian mode of fighting in all its perfection. Surely no race of men, not even the famous Cossacks, could display more wonderful skill in feats of horsemanship than the Indian warrior on his native plains, mounted on his well-trained war pony….” (G.A. Custer, 136) He also showed that he knew what defeat meant when writing about the fate of  “…poor Kidder and his party, yet so brutally hacked and disfigured as to be beyond recognition save as human beings….Every individual of the party had been scalped and his skull broken….even the clothes of all the party and him carried away, some of the bodies were lying in beds of ashes with partly burned fragments of wood near them, showing that the savages had put some of them to death by the terrible tortures of fire. The sinews of the arms and legs had been cut away, the nose of every man hacked off, and the features otherwise defaced so that it would have been scarcely possible for even a relative to recognize a single one of the unfortunate victims. We could not even distinguish the officer from his men. Each body was pierced by from twenty to fifty arrows, and the arrows were found as the Savage demons had left them, bristling in the bodies.” (G.A. Custer, 77) 

      Indian warfare was irregular warfare.  The central problem was catching the hostiles, and Custer laments, “Many of (our) men and horses were far from being familiar with actual warfare, particularly of this irregular character.  Some of the troopers were quite inexperienced as horsemen and still more inexpert in the use of their weapons, as their in accuracy of fire when attempting to bring down an Indian within easy range clearly proved.” (G.A. Custer, 137) Custer recounts how he whipped the Seventh Cavalry into shape and prepared it for the Army’s proposed winter campaign, designed to catch the Indians in camp during the supposedly impassable winter snows.

Paperback: Custer's Last Stand Portraits in Time

E-Book

Since his death along the bluffs overlooking the Little Bighorn River, in Montana, on June 25, 1876, over five hundred books have been written about the life and career of George Armstrong Custer. Views of Custer have changed over succeeding generations. Custer has been portrayed as a callous egotist, a bungling egomaniac, a genocidal war criminal, and the puppet of faceless forces. For almost one hundred and fifty years, Custer has been a Rorschach test of American social and personal values. Whatever else George Armstrong Custer may or may not have been, even in the twenty-first century, he remains the great lightning rod of American history. This book presents portraits of Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn as they have appeared in print over successive decades and in the process demonstrates the evolution of American values and priorities.

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Eighteenth Century Courtship

Courting took place at organized functions such as dances, horse races and church. Dancing was an important courting ritual among the wealthy. It was considered a good way to determine a potential marriage partner’s physical soundness, as well as the state of their teeth and breath. Dancing taught poise, grace and balance, especially important to women who had to learn to remain in their “compass”, or the area of movement allowed by their clothing. Balls often lasted three to four days and took all day and most of the night. 

Women, then as now, had ways of making themselves more alluring.  Among the elite, cosmetics were commonly worn.  Almost everyone had a pock marked face due to the widespread scourge of smallpox, but a handsomely pocked face was not considered unattractive, only an excessively pocked one.  Flour, white lead, orrisroot and cornstarch were common bases to produce the esthetic of a pure white face. Over these red rouge was used to highlight cheekbones, in a manner that would be considered exaggerated by modern standards, but was most effective in the dim light afforded by candles in the eighteenth century. Lip color and rouge were made from crushed cochineal beetles. Cochineal was an expensive imported commodity; country women substituted berry stains. Carbon was used to highlight eye brows and lashes, which were groomed with fine combs.  The key aspects of the 18th century cosmetic look were a complexion somewhere between white and pale, red cheeks, and red lips.  The ideal woman had a high forehead, plump rosy cheeks, pale skin, and small lips, soft and red, with the lower lip being slightly larger thus creating a rosebud effect. Although bathing one’s entire body was not a regular occurrence in the eighteenth century, the daily washing of one’s face and hands was the norm in elite social circles.

An almanac essay entitled Love and Acquaintance with the Fair Sex assures us that men were incapable of “resistance” against a woman’s, “attractive charms of an enchanting outside in the sprightly bloom of happy nature; against the graces of wit and politeness; against the lure of modesty and sweetness.”  Of course some men felt uneasy about female allurements which could account for the introduction of a bill before the British Parliament in 1770 entitled, “An Act to Protect Men from Being Beguiled into Marriage by False Adornments”. The proposed act read, “All women, of whatever rank, age, profession or degree, whether virgins, maids or widows, that shall, from and after such Act, impose upon, seduce or betray into matrimony, any of His Majesty's subjects, by the use of scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes and bolstered hips, shall incur the penalty of the law in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanours and that the marriage upon conviction shall stand null and void.”  To the everlasting regret of some the Act did not become law.

Love, Sex, and Marriage in Colonial America 1607-1800

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